Vacuum Coffee Maker – An Introduction to Great Coffee

Vacuum Coffee Maker: Many names have been given to this unusual coffee brewing device. Names such as siphon brewer, vac brewer and siphon coffee maker to name a couple.

The most common name however for this contraption is vacuum coffee maker.

Originally invented in Berlin, Germany in the early 1800s by the company Loeff, the invention of the electric coffee maker in the mid 1900s all put replaced the vacuum maker in many American households. Recently though this unique coffee maker has been making a strong comeback.

The vacuum coffee maker has 4 basic part to it: A top globe where you pour the coffee.

A Bottom globe where you pour in fresh water; A Siphon tube between the globes.

And a filter in the tube that filters out the hot fresh brewed coffee from the used coffee grounds.

The heating and cooling of water vapor provides the science behind the vacuum effect. By heating the bottom globe container, water vapor is created. It is this vapor that forces the water up the vacuum tube where it mixes in the top globe container with the ground coffee.

Now that all the water has moved to the top container, the gas can move up to the top container as well. As the water continues to escape to the upper globe, the water is kept up there by the continual pressure, brewing at the perfect temperature.

This boiling appearance continues for one to three minutes, brewing the coffee perfectly until the maker is removed from the heat. Removing the vacuum maker from the heat reverses the vacuum effect and pulls the coffee from the upper chamber into the cooling bottom chamber.

The suction is so great the ground beans are literally sucked dry.

The originals used alcohol and a wick to heat the water. Today though, we have many options to heat our coffee makers. Modern time options include the stove top and wick burners fueled by alcohol, butane, or some other stable fuel. When it comes to speed, wick burners are definitely the slowest.

If you need your coffee fast try one of the butane burners. If you decide to go with the butane burners, look for one that you can control the flame, this is necessary.

Two globe vacuum makers are the most popular design, however there are some other designs. This design has one globe stacked vertically on top of the other, connected with the siphon tube.

While it works by the same principals, the balance coffee maker is just like the two globe model but lays horizontal rather than vertical. While there are many different sizes of Vacuum Coffee Makers, the majority fall in 12, 20 and 32 ounce range of sizes.

Ever since electric coffee makers came out, only a few companies still produce the vacuum coffee maker. With increasing popularity, vacuum makers are beginning to get noticed by the manufactures once again, who are now considering the idea of bringing them back to the mainstream. Many Japanese companies are still producing siphon coffee makers.

This is because electric drip coffee makers have never really been popular in this Asian country. Bodum from Europe makes one of the best and most well know vacuum brewers these days; It’s called the Santos.

I hope you enjoyed this introduction. One thing is for sure, vacuum coffee makers brew a superior cup of coffee, and not to mention they are fun to watch doing it!